


The Madness of Lucy Saxon

by antivalentine



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bad BDSM Etiquette, Cupboard Sex, Depression, Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, F/M, Murder, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-04
Updated: 2007-12-07
Packaged: 2018-04-22 23:42:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4855127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antivalentine/pseuds/antivalentine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Ma dimmi: al tempo de' dolci sospiri,</em><br/><em>a che e come concedette amore</em><br/><em>che conosceste i dubbiosi disiri?</em><br/>(<em>Inferno</em> V, 118-120)</p><p>From toilets to Toclafane, from shag cupboards to Sesame Street, from G-strings to nooses, Lucy's whirlwind journey through time and space culminates in the realisation that the gun is always the most important thing in the room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Honourable Lucy Cole

Officially, it was a book launch; some tedious biography of a former Cabinet minister. Unofficially, everyone was there to check out Mr Saxon. It wasn't long after his shock victory in the Peterborough by-election, so naturally he was mobbed. Everyone wanted to be part of the buzz, the next big thing. If Lucy had to hear about 'changing the landscape of politics' one more time, she was going to have to gouge out her brain with a cocktail stick.  
  
She was in publishing, sort of. It involved very little actual work other than sleeping with the boss. The annoying thing was that there was a picture of his kids on the wall in his office -- Poppy, India, Hugo -- and every time she came up for air after another executive blowjob she could see their giggling faces watching her. It creeped her out. Not enough to stop her doing it, but enough. Lucy really didn't like children. She supposed she'd end up having some one day -- elective Caesarean at the Portland, full-time nanny, sign it up for nursery while still in the womb -- but it wasn't something she was looking forward to.  
  
Nursing a glass of champagne, Lucy stood in the corner ignoring her boss and thinking of nothing but how much these shoes were killing her. He caught her eye. She smiled, automatically; well-trained, polite, magnificently bored. He held her gaze for just a fraction of a second too long, before returning to the men in suits.  
  
Oh my God, thought Lucy. Just that. That was about as coherent as it got.  
  
Yes, everyone went on about how charismatic he was, how charming, but also how sincere he was, how friendly, how nice. He was very brilliant, intellectually, but he wore it lightly, and however much you wanted to dislike him, you couldn't. Lucy was sceptical. She'd been around politicians all her life, and in her experience they were neither nice nor interesting.  
  
Oh, she'd seen his face on the news, thought fleetingly he wasn't bad for an MP. She'd even skimmed through a Daily Mail article on the Tube yesterday, talking about how his ability to capture the female vote heralded a new era of poster-boy politics, or something like that. Her boss was talking about offering him a 20K advance for his memoirs, before anyone else jumped in. Hot property, yeah. But seeing him in the flesh was a whole different ballgame. Certainly, never, never in a million years could she have imagined herself fancying him this much.  
  
Her eyes sought him out again, checking that she actually did fancy him. He glanced back, again, amused. She drained her glass, went in search of another. He greeted some long-lost friend or campaign sponsor with a slap on the back. She made lazy small-talk with a colleague. And all the time, they were playing eye tag. A coy, Lady Di lowering of the lashes. A too-long look snapping away too suddenly. A wink, an actual wink. Lucy blushed and giggled and looked away and tried not to look back.  
  
She knew she was attractive; she'd never been plagued by self-doubt on that score, or indeed any other. Part of that was because she was an upper-class girl brought up with a sense of entitlement, and part of it was because she didn't go in for introspection, but mostly it was because she was blonde.  
  
Lucy was never the school bully. Lucy was the bully's best friend, alternately sniggering and silent, who could never be absolutely accused of anything but failure to intervene, and who could blame her for that? She was probably scared of being next, her giggles at some classmate's humiliation the product of nervousness.  
  
Actually, Lucy giggled because she found it funny. But the truth was too simple for most people.  
  
Tamara. That was her name: the bully, the best friend. She'd never been quite right in the head, ended up on heroin. Lucy, the eternal number two, had come out on top, sane and golden. As if she could ever be anything else.  
  
'You must be the Honourable Lucy Cole,' he said, finally, making a little bow before her. 'I'm plain old Harry Saxon.'  
  
'Not so plain,' said Lucy archly. 'And please, nobody uses the title nowadays.'  
  
'They should. Nothing wrong with titles. We've thrown away too many of our traditions already. I suppose you're going to tell me you're not that honourable, though.'  
  
Lucy laughed. 'I suppose the honourable member for Peterborough would know all about that.'  
  
'So.' he said. 'We're both honourable people, equal in rank and dignity. Excellent. Shall we shag now, or later?'  
  
A slow, shocked smile spread over Lucy's face. She put her champagne flute down on the ledge beside her. 'I think... now.' She tried to ignore the butterflies fluttering frantically in her stomach. Try to act calm, she thought. Try to act like this is no big deal, happens all the time. Except if it happened all the time, wouldn't that make you a complete slapper?  
  
He brushed his hand lightly against the small of her back, guiding her out of the room. A gentleman, she thought. Then she remembered what he'd just said. Hmm, possibly not. All the better.  
  
Once safely in the corridor where no-one could see them, he gave her a wicked smile. 'You're not the kiss-and-tell type, are you, Honourable Lucy?'  
  
'I kiss all right,' said Lucy haughtily, 'but I never tell.'  
  
'I thought so' he said.  
  
Even though she was expecting it, the kiss seemed unexpected. The kiss seemed to catch her offguard, knock her sideways, pick her up and whirl her round and set her down again, breathless with an idiotic grin on her face.  
  
'Privacy,' he said. He grabbed her hand, cool and commanding, and hurried her down the corridor. She stumbled on the thick carpet as she tried to keep pace -- those bloody shoes! -- but still, she was laughing as she ran, giddy with the champagne and the kiss and the sheer euphoria of having pulled the most talked-about man in London.  
  
Down the stairs. Past the heat and bustle of the kitchens, fast enough not to be seen, or least not to be recognised. Another corridor. A door. Locked. Another door. A cupboard!  
  
He pulled her inside and she laughed at the indignity of it, but also with relief. Because then they were kissing again -- recklessly, violently, his lips pressing down hard on hers as if he wanted to erase them. Slamming up against the door, their hands everywhere, prowling, kneading, pushing. He wrenched off his tie while she fumbled with his shirt buttons, wanting to get to the skin underneath. He pulled her skirt up, gripping her thigh -- thank goodness she'd gone with the little Agent Provocateur thong, Lucy thought -- but as soon as she'd thought it, it was gone, pushed to one side and his finger already on her clit... She moaned, shocked that she was so wet, so quickly. He nuzzled her neck, kissing, sucking... oh God, hickeys, how deliciously teenage. (Lucy had always had a lingering sense of injustice that she had been forced to spend her adolescence in a girls' school). She slithered down the door, teasingly, out of his grasp. Her back was damp against the painted wood. His erection strained against his trousers as he bent down over her, straddling her. Lucy reached out towards it but he caught her, hard around the wrists, and pushed her arms above her head. She giggled, breathily, and arched her hips towards him, hoping he would take the hint and renew his attentions down there, but he'd already eased the top of her dress off her shoulder to expose her bra.  
  
'Matchy matchy' he observed. 'Who knew she was getting some tonight?'  
  
Lucy wriggled. 'I always wear matching underwear.'  
  
'Yeah, right.'  
  
'I do,' Lucy insisted. 'My mother always said, what if you got hit by a bus?'  
  
'Riiiight.' He broke off his attentions to her nipples and sat upright. 'So, you get hit by a bus. You're lying motionless in the street. Pools of blood. And people come and lift up your skirt so they can check your knickers match your bra? Is that how it works?'  
  
She sighed. 'It's something mothers say, isn't it? Oh God, I _really_ don't want to be talking about my mother...'  
  
He laughed an evil little laugh. 'Yes, let's. Let's not fuck at all. Let's just sit here in this delightful cupboard and talk about Mummy.'  
  
'Bastard,' said Lucy, and hit him on the arm. He hit her back, same place. It hurt, a little. Men never knew their own strength.  
  
And then he pushed her down on to the floor, so she was flat on her back rather than propped against the door, and banged her head against a cold, hard surface she wasn't entirely expecting to be there, and cried out with the pain -- or maybe because he was pressing down on her clit, she wasn't quite sure, it was all mixed up together -- and closed her eyes, letting the room swirl around her as he played with her body. She concentrated on merging her mouth with his, exploring it with her tongue. He tasted of champagne, a hint of cigar smoke, something else she couldn't put her finger on... Everything was throbbing, her head, her body, the room, beating like drums. Her breathing grew shorter, more rapid. She reached out hungrily for the bulge in his trousers, again, and this time he took her clumsy hands away from the fly and unbuttoned it himself, kneeling upright, looking at her intently the whole time.  
  
In a split, blurry second, she assessed the risks, decided they weren't worth worrying about, and whispered 'Fuck me'.  
  
He smiled, triumphantly. Oh, the arrogance of him was sickening. And so, so sexy.  
  
She pulled him down on top of her, running her hands through his hair, down his back, bringing them to rest on his buttocks. She spread her legs, feeling the damp thong bite into her flesh and wishing it would magically disappear. As he buried his head between her breasts, nipping and sucking softly at her skin, she pulled his groin closer to hers. He looked up, and their eyes met again -- bright, feral, dangerous. Her heart was pounding so hard, she was sure he could hear it.  
  
He reached down, pulled hard on the thong. It sliced deeper for a moment then snapped, leaving her exposed. Thirty pounds down the drain, thought Lucy, but so worth it. Before she could think anything else he was inside her, riding her like a pony, hard and fast.  
  
Lucy closed her eyes and let everything go -- let her body convulse, let the waves of pleasure close over her head, let everything in the world disappear but his body and her own, screwing frantically, biting and clutching and gasping and sliding and sucking till she hardly knew what parts belonged to him and which to her.  
  
Afterwards, they gathered themselves together. He stuffed her knickers into his pocket, a trophy. She groped on the floor for her discarded clutch bag and fished out an eyeliner, writing her number on the inside of his wrist, and he presented her with a business card, smiling wryly at the incongruity of it.  
  
Lucy knew she still looked dishevelled, doing the walk of shame back to the party. Her lipstick was hastily applied and she didn't even want to think about her hair. But everybody seemed to accept her story about getting lost looking for the little girl's room. It was one of those times when being blonde worked to her advantage. As for Mr Saxon, he was a very busy man. No surprise that he'd had to leave early.  
  
She knew she'd see him again; if only because the alternative was unthinkable.


	2. Honeymoon

Something Tamara had mentioned, when they were still speaking: how violent the language of addiction was. Hit. Smack. Crack. Blow.  
  
Lucy understood that, now. It certainly made more sense than when people said he'd swept her off her feet. Swept: as if she were _dust_. It was harder than that, more powerful. It was being knocked down. It was being struck in the face and reeling. It was the way he bit down on her lip and startled her with the metallic taste of her own blood, or crushed her fingers whenever they held hands. She moved differently when she was around him. He made her aware of her own physicality in a way that nobody else ever really had. She wasn't the feminist type, but for the first time in her life she found herself getting annoyed when people referred to her as a girl. She was a woman.  
  
She dumped her boss, without fear of repercussions -- hadn't she just secured them a surefire publishing sensation? And, since the relationship was all extra publicity for the book, he was hardly in a position to object. Lucy got her own office, and her boss got another PA, and everyone was happy.  
  
Harry steadfastly refused the services of a ghostwriter, even though Lucy tried to persuade him it was standard practice. She couldn't see how he could possibly find time to finish it by the deadline, what with Archangel and his new ministerial post. But Harry didn't care. Harry said Maggie Thatcher was such a girl, with her need for four whole hours of sleep a night. Beds weren't for sleeping in. Power naps were the way to go. Lucy sometimes felt inadequate for not being able to get by on the occasional siesta, but Harry said he was the last person in the world to begrudge his blondie her beauty sleep.  
  
They had been seeing each other about three months when they drove up for Sunday lunch at Daddy's house. Lucy always thought of it as 'Daddy's house', never as home; she was already fourteen when he inherited it, and by that time she no longer cared where she spent the school holidays. It was one of those vast, crumbling piles which eat money until there is none left and one has to sign it over to the National Trust. She already knew Harry wasn't going to be impressed by the size of it, and she loved that; he wasn't landed, he wasn't part of the titled clique she'd grown up in, yet there was none of that awful tacky grovelling after _things_ so characteristic of the middle classes. What was it that profile in the Sunday Times magazine had said? He was the first Englishman to transcend class without compromising his Englishness. It didn't make that much sense, but it sounded glorious.  
  
She already knew that Daddy was going to love him. Everyone loved him.  
  
Sure enough, after a blissful afternoon (roast beef followed by summer pudding followed by lovely light fizzy cava in the garden), as they meandered back to the car ready for the drive back down to London, Daddy said gruffly:  
  
'I like your young man, Lucy. I like him very much. Make sure you hang on to him, eh?'  
  
'Oh, I will' Lucy assured him, linking her arm through Harry's.  
  
'And you... remember what I said. You look after her.'  
  
Harry grinned. 'Oh, I will,' he echoed. 'Your daughter is safe with me.' He patted her hand, proprietorially.  
  
Lucy glowed. She knew she'd always been a vague disappointment to her father: she hadn't excelled at school, hadn't got into Cambridge, never had any real direction in life, just drifted from random job to random job and one unsuitable man to another. Now, she was herself. She had a purpose. She could plan and dream and focus all her energy on the single unspoken goal of helping Harry become Prime Minister. She would make her father proud. She would make Harry proud.  
  
So she wasn't surprised when the very next day, Harry took her for dinner at the top of the Oxo Tower, London spread out in twinkling lights before them as the sun went down, and presented her with a perfect diamond solitaire, so expertly cut it sparkled and flashed like destiny.  
  
He had asked Daddy's permission. He had sought Mummy's approval of the ring. Even without that, her answer would not have required a moment's thought.  
  


* * *

  


Lucy had always assumed that her wedding would be a traditional affair -- country church, horse and carriage, morning suits, multiple bridesmaids and outrageously expensive frock -- but then, she had always assumed that the groom would be a traditional man. She didn't care about all that nonsense anymore. Wasn't it just a desperate attempt to make something very ordinary exciting? What she had and Harry had was exciting enough already. It didn't need all those frills and fripperies.

So, in the end, they slotted it in around his work. He booked a few days in New York -- he had some Archangel-related meetings to attend there anyway -- and so it was that Lucy Cole found herself in a white Chanel suit exchanging vows in front of the registrar, two fat balding businessmen as witnesses, no press, no photographers. Just her and her Harry, husband and wife.

  


* * *

  


'You know, Lucy, it's not like that marriage was legally binding or anything.' he said casually, unknotting his bow tie and throwing it down onto the bed.

'Because it's in America?' said Lucy, trying not to sound disappointed. Maybe he'd planned a church wedding after all...

'No, no, my little imbecile.' He flung himself onto the bed, looking and sounding immensely pleased with himself. 'Because Harold Winston Saxon doesn't exist!' He laughed.

'What do you mean, Harry? Of course you exist.'

'I exist, yes. That's evident even to you, Blondie. But I'm not Harold Saxon.' He looked directly at her, unblinking.

'But the... But the election. And the papers... And your passport, I've seen your passport...'

'Lies!' he said happily. 'A big fat pack of lies!'

Lucy backed slowly against the wall. She was used to his moods by now. Even in the short time she had known him, she had become attuned to them; his fits of caprice, the way he could switch the charm on and off at will. She was even accustomed to the brooding darkness that came upon him sometimes, that she flattered herself nobody else ever saw, and drew them closer because it spoke to something deep inside herself.

But this manic fit... this was new. This was alien. This reminded her forcibly that she had known him for less than six months.

'If you're not Harold Saxon' -- she tried to keep her voice light and jovial, like his, but the tremor gave it away -- 'who are you?'

'That's an excellent question, Lucy. Bravo! Come here, and I'll tell you.' He beckoned, theatrically, with one finger. 'What? You're scared?' He tilted his head to one side. 'Scared, of little old me? You married me, didn't you?'

She had. She twisted the ring nervously around her finger, and joined him on the bed. She wanted him to snap out of this and make everything lovely again.

'Ah,' he said, tenderly brushing her hair away from her forehead. 'You want me to snap out of this and make everything lovely again.'

Lucy blinked at him, startled.

'Can you hear it?' he said. 'Listen.'

Lucy listened. The faint blare of horns in the street, dozens of storeys below. A gurgle in the pipes. An almost imperceptible rush of wind, funnelled through skyscraper corridors. Her own breath, ragged and uncertain.

'What?' said Lucy.

'The drums. Can you hear the drums?'

'What drums? Harry, stop this. You're confusing me.'

'I know,' he sighed. 'I thought, the amount of intergenetic transfer that's gone on, maybe...'

'Inter-what? Harry, you're not making any sense.'

'What's especially touching,' he said, 'is the fact you keep saying Harry, in spite of just having been told he doesn't exist. As if calling his name will make him real.' He kissed her, quite suddenly, on the lips, and even though she was still scared, and confused, and wondering what the hell was going on, she felt herself melt into it, like always. This, at least, was certain.

'Lucy Saxon,' he said, pushing her back onto the bed. 'I want you to say my name.'

'Harold' breathed Lucy, even though she already knew it was the wrong answer, or at any rate not the one he wanted.

'Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. Didn't I just tell you there was no such person?' He moved his hands down her body, possessively. 'I'm your husband, Lucy. It's about time I told you who I really am.'

'Who are you?' she whispered.

'I am The Master.' He wrenched down her knickers and straddled her. 'I'm... oooh, getting on for a thousand years old, and I'm going to rule the universe, starting with your miserable little planet for personal reasons of my own. Any other questions?'

The bizarre thing -- of the many bizarre things, perhaps the most bizarre -- was that she didn't actually have any questions. She believed him. The expression in his eyes was one of absolute truth and sincerity. Even though she felt frightened, even though she felt betrayed, she had also never felt so close to him.

She could feel his cock pulsing at the opening of her vagina, taunting her with the faintest of touches, refusing to enter her. She wanted him -- oh God, she had never wanted anything so badly -- but as she arched and wriggled he kept aloof.

'Say my name'. His voice rasped in her ear as he held her down by the wrists.

'Master' she gasped -- and he was inside her, suddenly, not just in her body but in her brain -- she could feel him filling her up, as if she were a glass and he were water -- hot water, bubbling, burning, racing through her veins. She heard her own voice at a distance, moaning. _Master. Master. Oh, Master._ Every thrust pushed her closer, trembling, to the edge, until finally the glass overflowed and shattered. She cried out, wordlessly. He slipped away from her. She felt herself slide into a deep, sated sleep.

'Lucy, Lucy.' She opened her eyes. He'd propped himself up against the pillow, and was watching her. 'I'll take you travelling through time and space. We will conquer the stars. You and I, Lucy. We are invincible.'

Lucy smiled sleepily. 'I am married,' she said, like any other drowsy bride, 'to the most wonderful man in the world.'

'Yes,' he said. 'Aren't you lucky?'

  


* * *

  


For the next few days, they holed themselves up like the honeymooners they were, living on room service. And they talked. He told her about growing up on Gallifrey -- how beautiful it was, how ancient and wise his people, how stultifyingly dull. He told her about the beauty of war, the glory of power -- not the kind of power that politicians in one piddling little country had, but real power, the power of life or death over entire civilisations -- while she perched on the bed in her dressing gown, eyes wide. He told her what really happened in Peterborough to free up the seat so conveniently for him. He told her weird, sad, exciting, funny stories about his thwarted plans for universal domination. And then they would order minute steak sandwiches with fries, and she would sleep for a while, sinking into strange, marvellous dreams of battles and skyscrapers. He would work for a few hours, watch Sesame Street, have a power nap. And they did what honeymooners are supposed to do, on the dressing table, in the bath, a dozen different ways on the bed.

It was extraordinary, the speed with which the unimaginable became normal, the way in which the bizarre meshed so seamlessly with the everyday. After only a day or so of living with this new knowledge, she was no longer shocked that he was a Timelord, only shocked that she had ever been dim enough to believe that someone as extraordinary as him could be merely human.

It wasn't until the cab ride to the airport that he turned to her and said quietly 'When I said it wasn't legally binding, I meant it, Lucy. You don't have to get on this plane. You can call your parents, tell them I wasn't the man you thought I was, and go back to being Lucy Cole. Because this is not an easy option. When I promised your dad you'd be safe with me, I lied. I can't promise that. Like I told you, I have enemies out there. My life is dangerous, and your life with me will be dangerous.'

'But you need me,' said Lucy, twisting the gold band around her finger.

He took her hand and squeezed it, more softly than usual. 'Yes,' he said, almost resentfully. 'I need you.'

Lucy squeezed back. 'I'm your wife. I'm not going anywhere.'

He grabbed her cheeks and kissed her, before breaking into a broad smile and leaning back in his seat. 'You're so wrong about that. We're going _everywhere_.'


	3. Utopia

As it turned out, there was only one place in all of time and space that they could travel -- only one set of co-ordinates that the crippled TARDIS would accept -- and it was the end of the universe, billions of years hence.

Lucy had been excited when he told her where they were headed, like a child going to Disneyworld. She had a vision in her head of some massive firework display, the biggest explosion ever, like an atom bomb times a couple of billion, which they would watch from some safe vantage point. And probably screw while it was going on, because destruction always made him hard. _What's the strangest place you've ever had sex? At the end of the universe._ It'd be wild.

It wasn't like that. It was very dark, and very cold. She thought he'd made her bring that old sable coat for glamour, not for warmth. And the people! They were so dirty, their faces so blank, their eyes so desperate that she didn't want to go anywhere near them. The men leered, the women looked at her coldly. That look women give women who are younger, prettier, richer than they are. She matched them stare for stare. She wasn't going to let them intimidate her.

'Humans,' he sneered. 'They're so stupid. Like, hello? End of the universe. You don't escape that by building a rocket to some imaginary magic planet. But you know what? I'm going to save them. Not out of the goodness of my hearts, but because they're useful. Or they will be, once a little modification has occurred.'

He didn't say anything like that to them, of course. He spoke to them as if he were at a rally. Pressing the flesh, careful to make eye contact with every one of them, smiling, chatting. 'It's me!' he said, 'Professor Yana!... Yes, I made myself younger... I know, I know... Oh, her... Guess, go on, guess... Chantho, of course!... Yes, but these are the miracles of science... did you really think I was just working on that poxy ship all those years?...'

And then the big speech. It wasn't so very different from the ones he made back home, really, though the bedraggled audience was the polar opposite of the powerful people he was usually trying to reel in. The same trick of leaning forward at critical points, drawing them in, confiding in them. The same smiles. He'd found the real Utopia, and it wasn't just a place, it was a time. The glorious past! The Earth, the mythical, beautiful blue and green planet from which all humanity had originally sprung! He'd actually been there, back to the twenty-first century. Imagine! Trees bearing real fruit, golden fields bursting with corn, blue skies dotted with birds, seas teeming with fish. Yes, he had made himself younger, and given his companion a different form. Now he was going to take them back there. They, too, would be reborn into that golden age. 

Naturally, there was work to be done. It would take time and effort to build the machinery to transform them all into younger, better beings, fit for Utopia. But he knew, with dedication and hard work, they could all pull together and make it happen.

He was harking back a few billion years rather than a few decades. That was the only real difference between this and all his other speeches. 

Lucy clapped and smiled even more fervently than usual, overwhelmed with pride and admiration. Such a brilliant man, her husband. He could take any audience and hold them in the palm of his hand, convince them of his utter truth and honesty. And he had chosen her to stand by his side. He was her husband. What an honour, what a prize that was!

'Who is Chantho?' she asked, in bed that night.

'Uh?' he grunted, vaguely.

'Chantho. They asked who I was, and you said Chantho.'

'Oh, her. Some bug girl I used to knock around with. Terribly annoying and subservient, completely obsessed with me of course. I had to kill her in the end. Well, actually she killed me, too. Not important. Don't worry about it.'

'You killed her? She killed you?' A thrill ran through Lucy as she said the words. The thought of killing always sent that same electric pulse through her nerves -- a delicious shiver, like vertigo.

'Oh,' he said, opening one bright mischievous eye. 'Haven't I explained to you about regeneration?'

  


* * *

  


Lucy stayed in the TARDIS, most of the time. It was so cold, outside, in the dim red light of a dying sun; and there was nothing very interesting about the sight of those cowed refugees building a factory, or whatever it was. Even so, she didn't like the TARDIS. It wasn't a comfortable place. It gave her a strange, shunned feeling, like someone had turned their back on her and refused to turn round even when she called them. This feeling made no sense, and therefore irritated her.

The only thing that consoled her was when he came home every night, smiling -- _not long now, the mechanisms are nearly in place_ \-- and she presented him with his dinner (they'd stocked up at Harrods before leaving) -- and they flirted outrageously over the table before heading off to bed. 

He did try explaining what the mechanisms were -- the regression chamber, the biotransformation chamber -- but engineering bored her, and anyway, all he really needed to be told was how brilliant he was. The slaves -- they were slaves, she supposed, since he didn't pay them and they all addressed him as Master -- were no company at all for him. He needed her at his side.

Sometimes Lucy looked at the best before dates on the tins and jars and thought -- that is billions of years before now. If I were to walk outside and show this to the people out there, and they could see it was still edible, it would blow their minds. Apparently, though, most of them couldn't read anyway. And she wasn't especially inclined to share her stuffed olives with them, especially since she wasn't sure how long they were going to be stuck in this godawful place.

And then one day he came home and said 'The first one's done. Come and see.' 

He took her hand and led her to the last room in the plant, all rusted walls and biting cold. In the centre of the room, there hovered a red velvet cloth, supported in the middle by a ball. He whisked the fabric away with a little flourish and the metal orb underneath spun and whirred. It dipped and flew towards Lucy, so that she could see the patterning on its surface, winking in the fluorescent light. Then the blades fanned out like a peacock's tail, all bright steel and sharpness.

'Oh,' breathed Lucy. 'It's beautiful.'

He glowed with pride. 'That's what they'll all be, all those miserable creatures out there. Beautiful little toy soldiers.' 

The ball withdrew to its original position. 'We love our Master' it announced, in the tone of a particularly insipid child, and spun on its axis as if for joy.

'It talks like a child' said Lucy.

'It is one,' said Harry. 'They all are. Or will be, anyway. Better that way, don't you think?'

Their eyes met, and she smiled. Of course. He was so brilliant, thinking of that. She'd been a child herself -- not so very long ago, by his reckoning -- and consequently knew that children were more in touch with their innate evil, and madness, and amorality, than anyone else. Except of course her Harry.

And it was obviously happy. He had relieved it of its ugly body and was taking it to its new home. It was the only way he could save the human race, he explained, by taking them back home while it still existed. And when he was done, the whole universe would be their playground. 

She thought of herself and Tamara, cornering some random nobody in the showers because she'd looked at Tamara the wrong way. If only they'd had those knives! The havoc they could have wreaked! How lucky they were, these Toclafane children. Invulnerable in their armour, they could fly anywhere. And kill whatever they wished. Whatever was left.

It was marvellous to see them swarm into the TARDIS and stack themselves like cannonballs in the hall the Master had set aside for them. He would stow most of them inside the Archangel satellites, orbiting the Earth until the time came to unleash them, and keep a couple as pets in the meantime. 'Pocket bodyguards,' he said. 'Dangerous work, being a demagogue.' Lucy smiled, although she did not know exactly what a demagogue was and would have died rather than ask.

Did they have to scream so much while the transformation process was taking place, though? Didn't they realise that, however distasteful it might be, like the Master himself they needed to be killed in order to survive? 

  


* * *

  


He insisted on showing her the whole place. He was so proud of it. She knew she should share in his joy, smiled, even laughed a little, but... oh, the cold, the cold, seeping into her bones. And the thick, cloying quality of the air...

'What's that smell?' she said.

He looked at her strangely, as if she'd asked 'What's the capital of France?' or some other question equally insulting to the intelligence.

'Death,' he said, as if it were obvious. He laughed. 'Oh my poor dear Lucy, don't tell me you've never...'

'I'm young.' she said irritably. 'You're always telling me that.' She walked ahead a few paces and glanced at the anxious queue waiting behind the wire, beyond the soundproofed walls; their faces expectant, happy, fearful. The next batch.

 _Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate._ Abandon all hope, ye who enter.

She could always tell them to run. But what was the point? There was nowhere to run to.

  


* * *

  


Lucy herded the last of them into the TARDIS while he readied the ship for departure -- they flew obediently into place. The screaming had stopped. She kept half-turning, thinking she could still hear it.

She stood in the doorway, staring at the thousands of silent spheres. The air seemed even colder than usual. Whatever he'd saved, it wasn't the human race. She felt the truth of that deep in her frozen bones. 

She was the only human left on this desolate planet. Lucy Saxon, the last woman in the universe. She shivered. Partly horror, partly excitement, mostly cold.

She'd get to see the fireworks. He'd promised her. She'd have to wait a little longer, that was all.


	4. Valiant

He named the ship for her, he said. After the little girl at the end of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which they made her read in prep school. Queen Lucy the Valiant.

Not that you can necessarily believe anything he says. One has to remember that, in addition to being a tyrannical extraterrestrial mass murderer, he is a politician.

He likes her best in red -- colour of sex, death, fire, anger, pain, blood -- and the dress is stinking, by now. Space stations are not renowned for their dry-cleaning facilities. She doesn't care. She is past caring about anything too much. The pills take care of that. They stop her dreaming. They let her sleep.

Lucy likes to look at herself in the mirror, admire how tangled her hair is, the sluttish slash of smudged red lipstick, the way the saffron yellow of that bruise blurs into blotchy puce. She never used to be that kind of girl. She had always been shiny hair and a touch of blue eyeshadow, French manicures and Alice bands. Tamara's tattoos and track marks seemed to her ugly, incomprehensible. Now, she sees that if one is damaged on the inside, it is only right that the outside should reflect that. And that pain is beautiful. It is the only real thing. It is the only thing that distinguishes life from death.

Tamara is probably long gone. It is wonderful, isn't it, how the whole world now knows the correct usage of the verb 'to decimate'?She knows he did that for her. It had always been a bugbear of her father's. 

He's dead too. By his own hand, like his beloved Romans. One can't mourn. Such is war. 

Yes, the Master is cruel. But she has always known that. She has always seen that darkness in him, and adored him for it. And it is in the nature of cruelty to escalate. The trouble with pain is, you get used to it. Desensitisation is a big problem. If you are to continue to feel, then the slap must become a blow, the punch become a lash. The veins close up, the needle must get bigger.

Nowadays, barely anything is enough to stir her. She is always listless, bored (space stations are not renowned for their entertainment facilities), resentful. Sometimes, she thinks about baring her arm to the Toclafane and letting them play with the pale flesh. He would be angry if she did that. She's not supposed to hurt herself. That is his job.

She would probably hate him, if she were still capable of emotion. Not that she has ever been an emotional person. She watches as the Joneses move around, always watchful, their eyes burning with a steady, inextinguishable hatred every time they are forced to settled upon the Master. Resistance. How strange. He imposes his will upon them, and yet they act as if it is something separate. As if they were not in his hands. As if everything were not in his hands. She sees the same refusal in the wizened old Doctor's eyes. She doesn't venture down to see the Captain, not anymore. The Master gets jealous, though naturally he can grope the staff as much as he likes. 

It strikes her, sometimes, as they sit either end of the vast banqueting table, among the glittering chandeliers and candlelit crystal, ploughing their way through the interminable courses (how sick she is, of oysters), that her life is not so very different to that of her great-great-grandmother. Her job, too, is to be ornamental and smile graciously as her husband runs after the servants, flaunting his infidelities because he is her lord and master, and can do as he pleases. And then she dismisses the thought with a weary flick of the wrist. Nothing ever really changes, but what difference does that make anyway? She has seen how it is all going to end.

If she were still capable of emotion, she would be jealous of the Doctor, helpless old man that he is. Since the Doctor came, the Master has had a new confidant. Now he has somebody else to tell about his plans, and the Doctor's silent anger seems much more to his taste than Lucy's compliance. It's only logical, she supposes, that he should prefer the Doctor's bitter opposition to her own unquestioning support. He likes to fight, and he likes to inflict pain. Given the choice between making an enemy and a friend, he will choose the enemy. 

Perhaps that's why he's trying to make an enemy of her. More hatred, more resentment. He thrives on it. He never looks at her with more approval than when she defies him. She therefore tries not to do it too much. 

  


* * *

  


Most of the time he taunts her with her own redundancy, but on one occasion he pulls the noose a little tighter round her neck (the tabloids, if they still existed, would have had a field day with the bizarre sexual practices of the Prime Minister) and comments admiringly, 'You know, Lucy, I chose you for your body.'

She can still force a giggle at the compliment, though the smiles never reach her eyes anymore.

'Not that. Well, not just that.' He slaps her rump in a way that would pass for playful if it hurt less. 'But if anything happens and I need to hide again. An empty vessel. Just waiting to be filled.'

'I don't know what you mean' says Lucy. This is not strictly true. She thinks she may know what he means. She just doesn't want to admit it.

'We're husband and wife. One flesh. That which God has joined, let no man put asunder. What's yours is mine, what's mine is yours. All that.' He thrusts inside her, and she closes her eyes. 'Why do you think I keep doing this, Lucy? Why do you think I've always got my tongue down your throat? My cock up your hole? Eh?' He pushes deeper. She winces.

'Because you love me?' she whispers, but she knows how ridiculous that is even as the words escape her. _Love_. Such a soft, silly word. So wildly inappropriate to their relationship. Even at first, she never loved him. It would be absurd to say so. Like saying you loved breathing.

So they laugh. They both laugh, a faint echo of old times, the laughter of co-conspirators. And she wonders whether it always sounded this bitter.

'Genetic transfer' he says, rolling off her as if he can't even be bothered to fuck her to completion. 'There must be sufficient Timelord DNA floating around inside you by now for you to make me a comfortable enough home, if needs must. A sort of biological liferaft.'

Lucy is silent. She is struggling to take this in. The reason it is a struggle is because she doesn't want to understand. Besides which, the dizziness is kicking in. She feels lightheaded, floaty, and needs to concentrate on breathing. Lucy is unfamiliar with the concept of safewords. He is her lord and master. She is in his hands.

'The great war is coming,' he says, gathering her in his arms as if he loved her. 'And war is dangerous, and the Doctor is clever. No warrior goes into battle without preparing for the possibility that he might die or be captured.' He strokes her hair, as if she were a child. She likes that. It's comforting.

'What if I die first?' she says. Her voice sounds strained and far away.

'Well, then you die.' It doesn't seem to be something he's too worried about. 'And I pop myself into some other inanimate object. But I'd rather be a person. Girls are so much better than fob watches. They have fun squidgy bits to play with.' He squeezes her left breast, by way of illustration.

Lucy flinches. She feels him loosen the cord and lift it away, dragging on her skin as it goes. As if he's just remembered not to sink the ship before it sails.

  


* * *

  


She's shot a gun before. Not often, but enough. Once, on a shooting party, she brought a pheasant down out of a clear blue sky, and the men were unbearably patronising about what a decent shot she was. When they served it for dinner that night, she found one of the pellets on her plate, embedded deep in the dark pink flesh. For reasons she could not explain, this pleased her.

The Doctor is saying... what is the Doctor saying? She cannot focus on it at all. All she can see is the gun, lying on the floor; black, metal, implacably solid. Nobody else is looking at the gun. Why is nobody else looking at the gun? The gun is always the most important thing in the room.

There is a clear space between herself and the gun. There is a clear space between the gun and the Master. Like an open road, or a stretch of empty water. The path is so obvious. There is no need to think, even if there were time.

  


* * *

  


Everyone, afterwards, is oddly kind. In a distant, horrified sort of way, true, but gentle nonetheless. Nobody seems angry, at any rate. Somebody finds the tablets in her handbag. 'No wonder she's out of it,' says the Jones girl, 'that's nearly twice the maximum dose.' She is given hot, sweet tea, for shock. She is escorted away to take a shower and change into something sensible, fresh, less obviously ravaged. She scrubs at her face as if she could rub it away and get to what was underneath. Why is she still here? Where is he? He can't be dead. Death is not something the Master does. Not permanently, anyway.

Jack takes charge of her. Officially, she supposes, she is in custody. She is Torchwood's responsibility now. Seeing the reports of her own death in the papers is amusing, rather than upsetting. That pale, pristine first lady in the tweedy suits? She died months ago. In Utopia, perhaps, with the rest of the human race.

She'll receive counselling, be given a new identity. Depending on her progress, she may be allowed to live something approaching a normal life. In time.

As if a normal life were something she wanted.

  


* * *

  


She doesn't express her outrage when Jack tells her the Doctor is conducting the funeral rites in accordance with Gallifreyan custom, does not scream 'But I'm his wife'. She pretty much forfeited the status of widow when she killed him. All she says, in the customary meek monotone, is that she would like to say goodbye; if it's possible, if it's allowed.

The Doctor is, of course, merciful. He was willing to forgive a murderer of millions, and she is a murderess of only one. Nonetheless, he does not look at her as he passes. Or speak.

She is wearing a cheap black hoodie, the hood up to hide her face. It's not a garment she would have worn in any of her previous lives, but she feels safer in it. Inside the pockets, she clenches her fists and digs the false nails into her palms. Just to check she's still alive.

_You killed her? She killed you?_

She doesn't want him to come back. It's the last thing in the world she wants, for him to come back.

The Honourable Lucy Saxon feels her own blood, warm and sticky on her fingertips. _One flesh_. 

She closes her eyes. Bows her head. And waits.

**Author's Note:**

> As soon as I read that [Lucy's degree was in Italian](http://web.archive.org/web/20090422081421/http://haroldsaxon.co.uk/lucysaxon.shtml), there were going to be Dante quotes. The epigraph is addressed by the poet to Francesca, the student whose 'dubious desires' for her master Paolo have condemned them both to whirling through hell for eternity. And it's only natural that the Utopian massacres should remind Lucy of the inscription above the gates of Hell. (My headcanon is that Daddy was a classicist and Lucy wanted to emulate him, but had to settle for Italian because Latin was too hard.)
> 
> 2007 is so long ago I can't remember how obvious the genetic transfer stuff was pre-End of Time? But yeah, it was reasonably clear he was coming back and that Lucy would in some way be a vessel for that. My own thoughts on how that might be accomplished were touched upon in ['The Haze'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4856090), in which she finally hears the drums...


End file.
